1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to software for facilitating communication between client software and server software, in an environment where the client is communicating with the server over one or more wireless communication channels.
2. Description of the Related Art
The electronic content and sophistication of automotive designs has grown markedly. Microprocessors are prevalent in a growing array of automotive entertainment, safety, and control functions. Consequently, this electronic content is playing an increasing role in the sales and revenues of the automakers. The features provided by the electronic content include audio systems, vehicle stability control, driver activated power train controls, adaptive cruise control, route mapping, collision warning systems, security systems, etc. The significant increase of the electronic content of land based vehicles has concomitantly occurred with the explosive growth of the Internet and the associated data driven applications supplied through mobile applications.
Telematics, a broad term that refers to vehicle-based wireless communication systems and information services, promises to combine vehicle safety, entertainment, and convenience features through wireless access to distributed networks, such as the Internet. Telematics offers the promise to move away from the hardware-centric model from audio and vehicle control systems that are built into devices that are custom designed for each vehicle, to infotainment delivered by plug-and-play hardware whose functionality can be upgraded through software loads or simple module replacement. Furthermore, new revenue streams will be opened up to automobile manufacturers and service providers through the products and services made available through telematics.
Since these infotainment systems integrate entertainment and information within a common envelope, the systems need to be highly integrated, open, and configurable. However, the electronic systems currently on the market are custom designed for the make, model, year and world region in which the vehicle is sold. Additionally, the electronic systems being used today are linked by proprietary busses having severely limited bandwidth that are inadequate for data-intensive services combining information entertainment and safety. The proprietary and customized systems require a developer to know the underlying software and hardware application program interfaces (APIs) in order to develop applications for future infotainment systems. However, numerous proprietary and customized systems are spread across the various makes and models of the vehicles in the marketplace and even within the same model from year to year. Thus, the heterogeneous nature of the various systems essentially eliminates any benefits of economies of scale since equipment and software must be tailored to each model permutation.
Traditionally, vehicles use wireless connections to communicate with a base station or service provider. As the content available to telematics consumers increases in richness and complexity, a need for better bandwidth management has begun to surface. However, as most telematics-type systems are proprietary in nature, it is difficult to predict how particular devices will handle different communication bandwidth needs, or what types of applications can be written and still be supported.
In view of the forgoing, there is a need for methods to dynamically manage and assign access to communication channels used in wireless communication between a client application and a server application.